Vice President Mike Pence waves to the media after landing at the Roanoke-Blacksburg Regional Airport before heading to the National D-Day Final Salute 75th Anniversary Commemorative Ceremony in Bedford, Va., Thursday, June 6, 2019. (Emilee Chinn/The Roanoke Times via AP)
U.S President Donald Trump, left, talks to French President Emmanuel Macron during a meeting at the Prefecture of Caen, Normandy, France, Thursday, June 6, 2019. World leaders are gathered Thursday in France to mark the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings. (Ludovic Marin/POOL via AP)
President Donald Trump, first lady Melania Trump, French President Emmanuel Macron and Brigitte Macron, walk through The Normandy American Cemetery, following a ceremony to commemorate the 75th anniversary of D-Day, Thursday, June 6, 2019, in Colleville-sur-Mer, Normandy, France. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
U.S. President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump arrive for a ceremony to mark the 75th anniversary of D-Day at the Normandy American Cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer, Normandy, France, Thursday, June 6, 2019. World leaders are gathered Thursday in France to mark the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump, participate in a ceremony to commemorate the 75th anniversary of D-Day at the American Normandy cemetery, Thursday, June 6, 2019, in Colleville-sur-Mer, Normandy, France. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
BEDFORD, Va. — Vice President Mike Pence has traveled to the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford and paid tribute to what he calls “the pride of our nation” — the remaining U.S. veterans who participated in the D-Day landings in France that took place 75 years ago.
Pence says “we marvel at the courage that you showed as young men.”
With those veterans in mind, as well as those who died on D-Day or years later, he said: “We say one more time, thank you for your service, thank you for our freedom.”
The rural Virginia town’s D-Day losses were among the steepest, proportionally, of any American community. Twenty men from Bedford or the surrounding area were killed on D-Day — June 6, 1944. Bedford had a population of about 4,000 at the time.
Pence highlighted the story of the fallen, who came to be known as the “Bedford Boys.”
He says the truest memorial to them is “Our freedom, the freedom they fought and sacrificed so much for.”
At Normandy, France, leaders of many nations honored the memory of the fallen and the singular bravery of all Allied troops who sloshed through bloodied water to the landing beaches, a tribute of thanks 75 years after the massive D-Day assault that doomed the Nazi occupation of France and portended the fall of Hitler’s Third Reich.
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